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Apr 28, 2013

Day 4 "Shake Your Pom Poms" Blog Hop----my day!

Today is my day to participate in the "Shake Your Pom Poms" Blog Hop. Thanks to Thearica, our head cheerleader for this keeping us on the straight and narrow, cheering us on. Thanks to Mdm. Samm of Sew We Quilt for coming up with another fun theme. She does a lot of things behind the scenes to make these hops run so seamlessly and it keeps us coming back for more fun! Thank you also to our sponsors this round Clover, Red Rooster and Aurifil.

I share my day with this group of quilters/ bloggers/ pom pom crafters so please hop on over to see what they have been up when your visit is over here------

So without further delay how about I share what I have been making since the pom pom theme was announced? I started off first with a row of bunnies with pom pom tails since I needed to have this done in April for the quilt guild row of the month.

I opted to use an Appli-quilt bunny (Tonee White) rather than the one in the "Seasons in a Row" pattern this month. The bunnies were made from warm and natural batting and stitched down with perle cotton---not the easiest thing to needle, in retrospect, but I like the textural look of them.

Around here however, white pom poms in particular are cat toys. Skyler was doing his darnedest to get that pom pom off the bunny but alas, no front claws. Biting at it didn't work either!

Then I moved on to my main entry----and I had the hot glue burns to show for it. A few Christmases back I had to toss my old, bedraggled looking wreaths. I had spent some time looking in Pinterest for ideas and came upon a tutorial at Crosbie Crew. I needed a crafty looking wreath so here was my chance!! Kill two birds with one stone, right??

12 inch styrofoam form covered front and back primarily because I could quit figure out where to stop hot gluing. I think I went with through about 10 bags of pom poms to make this and even then had to rob Skyler's stash of white "puff balls" as we call them around here, LOL

White is hard to photograph I found as either it glares with the flash or looks slightly purple. ( Shown from a slightly different angle here). The tutorial showed using traditionally colored Christmas sparkly pom poms but I love these little neon colored ones. Actually it goes rather well with the print fabrics I am going to use for a tree skirt for my niece. HMMMM think she gets this one or I make another??

You guessed it, Skyler still wanted to play with this too! He likes the sparkly ones as it turns out and ran off with this one when I was still trying to glue them in place. I think he thinks they are bugs or something as he has really gotten rambunctious with them, more than the boring white ones.

Here, he is attacking the wreath itself from another angle.

Moving on----
I also wanted to play with the pom pom makers. These are just plain fun! Mdm. Samm is right about them making a full, nicely packed pom pom. Very little trimming required to shape them. I made one in each size just to show the size that they span. Really I don't see a lot of difference between the two smallest ones, only about 5 mm which is not much while the others jump in size more dramatically. I wish I had had these when I had to make my husband a set of golf head covers as that dinner plate sized one would have been great!

I did knit up two hats so I could use them for their intended purpose. Since the fall of 2012 I have been knitting a bit to help a long time friend who makes them for school kids in her area of Tennessee. When the box is full, I mail them off. I believe I have made about 25 or 30 or so at this point??? (Thanks to my pal Marilyn for letting me borrow her wig form!) I may have to knit more hats just to use the pom poms I did up, LOL.

Lastly, when I was ordering all those bags of pom poms I saw these little cat key rings kits. You know I love kitties so even if I really didn't need these, I made them anyway. After all, the packaging said something like fun for kids from 7 to 100 or some such thing, LOL. I fit in there somewhere!

There you have it----thanks for stopping by to see what I made for the hop. Now give your pom poms a shake and stop by to brighten another bloggers day as you have mine! Two more days remain in the hop and I know I have certainly enjoyed seeing with the others have done.

61 comments:

Great projects. I really like the batting bunnies with the pom-pom tails. I am going to have to try this technique.

The key chains are adorable!

Thanks also for showing the different size pom-pom makers. I am going to have to look for some of the smaller ones. I used to be able to make those on my fingers, but my dexterity just is not what it used to be and the ones I made recently were easily pulled apart by my kitties.

Skyler reminds me of my Butterfly. I love the picture with the sparkly pom-pom.

Lots of pom poms! Your row by row with the bunnies is going to be darling! Thanks for the scale of the different pom pom makers. Hope Skyler enjoys his pom poms... my cat adores them too. Thanks for sharing!

:) I giggled when I saw that adorable row of bunnies 'hanging' on the fence then laughed out loud when I saw the cat 'tormenting' the bunnies. We have a house rabbit and 2 cats. One of our cats is always batting the rabbit's tail down and watching it twitch. Something about cats and bunny tails. :) Thanks for sharing!!

CUTE!!!!I love the cat keyrings, and the rabbits. You have done so many projects. I have found a couple of Japanese pompom makers that are tiny but this range from Clover is amazing - I have never seen such a good representation of the sizes they offer so thanks so much for doing that and showing it.

fun I loved making pompoms with my pompom makers too. Last weekend I saw the two smallest ones at hobbie lobby. it was hard to leave them there and not bring them home. maybe another day they'll make it into my craft basket.

The "cotton tails" on the bunnies are my favorite - so CUTE!! And the wreath - the neon ones look like little gum drops in a field of tiny marshmallows - so I think you could use it for Easter as well as for Christmas. Be sure to thank Skyler for being such a good helper - ;))

Actually he didn't think much of them but that might have been because of the heaviness of the key ring part. Also I was afraid of the small pieces since they were only glued in place. In retrospect I probably could have sew at least parts of it together. I am replying here as I have no other way to contact you to answer.

The trials and reward of being a kitty mom! I took my hot glue gun to church to work with kids and then didn't go back to church there. So, I tried to use Elmer's all purpose - it didn't work. So, I guess if I'm going to do any pom work, it's a new glue gun. I love the bunnies. They took a lot of work and it is worth it. I hadn't thought about using clothes pins on my chain link fence - I used skirt hangers and being different, quilts hang at an odd angle. Thanks for the trick. Of course, that'll only work on my front fence - all the neighbors have wooden fences. I adore the wreath. It, too, was a lot of work and well worth the effort. Thank you for enduring your helper Skyler and sharing your creativity with us. You gave us great ideas. Thanks.

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Welcome to my little spot in bloggerland! My golfing husband and I moved from central Illinois in 97. Now I spend my time taking care of things at home and tending an active young male cat named Skyler. I am actively involved in making donation quilts for children in need but also love to knit, do redwork and cross stitching when I have time. I enjoy cooking/baking when I feel inspired to do so. Nothing like getting a chance to try an new recipe I've spotted or use one of my many collected cookbooks. Anyone else out there read those like a novel?